Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Politics and International Relations
Reader 1
Roberto Sirvent
Reader 2
Hanzhang Liu
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2022 Claire Shaw
Abstract
This paper explores how the modern state depends on gender constructs to maintain its existence and legitimacy through its protective, or ‘security,’ function. If gender liberation was achieved, would the state’s claim to legitimacy remain valid? Put differently, does the state need gender constructs to legitimize itself? In the interest of addressing – developing more than answering – these questions, an anarcha-feminist lens is employed to explore what might happen when one negotiates the feminist goal of gender liberation and the anarchist goal of abolishing the state. What follows is a discussion about the state’s reliance on a rigid gender binary rooted in western, white notions of gender and sex to position itself as the necessary ‘protector’ of women from illegitimate (i.e.: non-state sanctioned) violence. This paper situates itself within critical feminist research’s emancipatory objective and the anarchist struggle for global liberation.
Recommended Citation
Shaw, Claire, "States of (Un)Protection: An Anarcha-Feminist Examination of the Modern State's Reliance on Gender for Legitimacy" (2022). Scripps Senior Theses. 1917.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1917
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
